Sunday, 13 January 2013

The Archive - Dubai's Best Kept Secret?

If anyone knows how to create funky art/work spaces, it's the Shabib Brothers, the brilliant eccentrics behind The Shelter, Brown Book and The Pavilion among other things. The latest Bin Shabib creation is The Archive and it's a stunner.

I met with librarian Sarah Malki last week - we're planning a series of 'How to' workshops around writing and publishing books. I really didn't know what to expect, beyond 'we're in Safa Park, just go to Gate Five and you can't miss us'. Given that 'you can't miss us' is Abu Dhabi code for 'you'll die trying to find us', I had reservations.

Sure enough, you walk in through Gate 5 (it's the one facing the Sheikh Zayed Road), paying your Dhs3 entrance fee on the way in. And The Archive is straight ahead - a short walk through the green grass and palm trees of the park, a little oasis of tranquillity, birdsong and the sound of children playing.

The Archive is a single story building, an older concrete construction that has been artfully encased in glass and then lined with bookshelves - its primary purpose as a space is to house a collection of books on architecture, art, typography and design with a focus on the Middle East. It's also a workspace and meeting place with a café serving excellent contemporary food and drinks. The tables outside could hardly be a more delightful place to meet up for a chat or just sit back for a read in the dappled winter sunlight.

Sarah's building a wide-ranging program of events that's already getting pretty manic and no wonder - The Archive is a little treasure and the perfect place to hold smaller scale events with space, at this time of year at least, to get up to bigger scale stuff outdoors.

I'll post more on the workshops when we confirm dates and stuff. In the meantime, drop in there for a coffee - you'll be glad you did.

2 comments:

Luke
said...

@Muhammad Amir. Hijacking someone's blog with advertising is rather annoying. I have some questions for you:

1. What's the difference exactly between a "premium attraction" and just an attraction?2. Why are you mutilating the English language by using "premium" as an adjective, when it is just a plain, old noun.3. What's the difference between a "dedicated website" and just a website?

To make sense of Luke's comment, this piece of comment spam jerkery was posted as a comment on this post:

Desert Safari is a premium attraction for visitors who visit dubai and is rated as the top excursion in Dubai. For a delightful experience of the Dubai Desert you are warmly welcomed to book with Desert Rangers as it promises you the best service in the most affordable price for the Desert Safari Dubai tour. Our dedicated website for Desert Adventure Sports provides you with all the information, packages, itineraries, and guides for a wide range of other popular Tours.

This company regularly spams blogs with this type of trash trying to improve their SEO.

It's wearying, because every time they do I have to report it to Google as spam and delete the comment. I'll get around 1-2 of these a week from this company - and there are many others out there who are doing the same thing.

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I write books, I consult on publishing, media and digital communications, I cook. I spend quite a lot of my time laughing and do try not to be a stick-waving, spittle-flecked angry old man. I fail in this occasionally.